Introduction: This horrifying tale was composed by Therrilliar as an autobiographical account for telling at the first annual Autumn Scary Tales event. Its real-life origins are in an AD&D scenario Therrilliar's player wrote for his ongoing AD&D campaign.

The tale I tell you this night is one I have not told for many years, for it is one that is painful in its speaking and horrible in its hearing. But it is a tale of treachery and despair, and it should be told...as a warning.

It was perhaps twenty years ago, when I set sail from my island home of Onlor as passenger on the Gallon's Widow, heading west towards Elanthia.

It was winter, and the passage was risky, for large sea creatures oft winter in the warm currents of those waters, but our captain was in a hurry and sought to avoid any naval patrols, as was often the wont of a smuggler such as he.

The voyage was peaceful enough at first...dull in fact, but on the seventeenth day of our sojourn, the waters boiled as huge tentacles erupted from the seas and lashed the decks, splintering wood and crushing men in their deadly grasp.

We fought hard, and eventually the bite of our blades and the song of our arrows told, for the beast submerged to lick its wounds, though we were aggrieved at the loss of two of our number.

But the ship was in bad shape, crushed by three of those thick tentacles, and we needed to put in to some place for repair.

Fortunately, the captain knew of an island nearby inhabited by a tribe of natives who were friendly and with whom the captain had traded from time to time. So we limped and bailed and prayed to Eluned and finally came in sight of the smallish isle.

It was approaching dusk when we maneuvered the ship into the bay and brought her as close as the coral reefs would allow. Then a half dozen of us took to the long boat and rowed to shore.

We had expected to be met by curious villagers, for surely ships such as ours were not commonplace in these waters and the captain had assured us that he was treated to a feast by the tribesmen on his last visit.

But as we rowed nearer to the village of bamboo huts and mud wattles, we saw not a single villager stir, nor a single flickering light or flame. The only sound was the lapping of waves, the slight tell of our oars, and the night call of the beasts of the evening.

Clearly something was amiss, and as we beached our long boat upon the muddy shore, we drew blade and nocked arrow and a few struck up torches to guide us. So accoutered, we strode through the village.

What we strode through was a charnel house.

Huts were open to the night air as if ripped apart by great claws, splinters scattered upon the ground. Thatched roofs were pulled apart, and hide curtains were slashed with jagged cuts.

But worse still were the bodies.

Dozens of them in dozens of huts, mauled and mangled in ways that defy description, but all, every single body that still possessed enough of a face to judge its features, frozen in a horrible rictus of agony that bespoke of terror preceding death.

And the blood!

More than one would imagine from a thousand bodies, splashed everywhere, in great dried pools upon the ground, in streaks and handprints upon the hut walls, and in great violent spatters upon even the highest ceilings.

A mad, scarlet painting upon a canvas of terror.

We strode grimly through this madness, gorge rising in our throats, hoping to find the reason for such monstrousity.

A few of the sailors bent double and heaved their night's meal, but I was too numb from the sheer brutality displayed here to feel any emotion but fear.

It was only after several hours of searching that we found the three survivors. They were hidden in a small mound of mud, with a few breathing holes and a small store of food and water.

It took over an hour of gentle tones and persuasion for them to emerge from their hidey-hole, and in the end I had to play Hodierna's Lilt to calm them sufficiently.

The tale they told was an abomination.

There was a young couple of the tribe who were deeply in love, had been in love since childhood. These were Jenarta and Hadulo, and Hadulo had long hoped to marry Jenarta and to father her children.

Finally, one day, Hadulo came to the father of Jenarta and asked for his permission to marry his daughter.

Alas! For just that very day the warriors of the tribe had accused Hadulo's father of cowardice when a fight had erupted against a neighboring tribe over fishing rights.

Never would Jenarta be allowed to marry the son of a coward! A coward whose actions had cost the lives of two of the best warriors of the tribe.

Hadulo was heart-broken, and repeatedly begged Jenarta to defy her father and run away with him. But Jenarta always refused, not wanting to betray her father or her tribe.

And so it came to pass that Jenarta was betrothed to another and learned to love her betrothed, and as the day of the wedding approached, Hadulo's heart became dark as coal, and his anger seethed.

The night before the wedding, as Jenarta and her betrothed snuck away down the beach for a private moment together, Hadulo crept up behind them.

He plunged his coral dagger into the betrothed's spine, who fell to the ground dead. Then, with ravening in his eyes, he turned upon Jenarta.

With the strength brought of boiling anger, Hadulo shouted, loud enough so that the villagers nearby could hear "If you will not bear the children of Hadulo, fair treacherous Jenarta, then you shall bear no children forever!"

And with this he wielded his knife in a way which no knife was meant to be wielded, and he shut Jenarta off from the ranks of motherhood forever.

As the villagers approached the scene, Hadulo ran into the thick jungles north of the village. Jenarta, kneeling with her own blood at her feet, screamed in despair at the sight of her betrothed and, madness upon her, fled also into the jungle, a trail of blood following in her wake.

The villagers searched for days for both Hadulo and Jenarta, but found no trace of either.

A week later villagers went missing.

At first it was a hunter or two, and although uncommon, hunters had gone missing before, killed by mishap or raiding tribes.

But then villagers went missing from their huts in the middle of the night. The village shaman consorted with his ancestors and determined that a great curse was laid upon the tribe.

He went missing the next night.

As days passed, more villagers were taken in the night, and now the abductions were less subtle and more overt. Huts were slashed through and blood was evident.

Finally, villagers stopped being abducted, and were simply slain gruesomely within their own huts.

The remaining villagers banded together in the chieftain's house for mutual protection, all except the three we found hiding in the mud.

That was three nights before we had arrived, and those in the mud heard the sound of screams and of wet, gurgling death coming from the chieftain's hut two nights ago. Then all was silent until we arrived.

We knew then that we could not make repairs under these conditions, for we feared we would be beset as we laboured to repair our ship, and so, grimly, we determined to enter the jungle and search for the slayer of the villagers.

Long did we travel in that steamy clime, for most of the night and the rest of the day, hacking through thick growths and swatting at the buzzing insects that harangued our every move.

But as dusk again approached, we came quietly to a clearing. And within the clearing we saw her.

She was abomination.

She was a young tribeswoman, in ripped, dirty, blood stained clothes, and the inside of her legs still trickled with fresh blood.

Her face was contorted into a grimace that defied normal musculature, and her eyes...her eyes were unfathomable malice.

And the clearing she inhabited...was hell brought to earth.

I shall not even deign to describe what I saw in that clearing, except to say that even the vilest Gorbesh did not deserve the fate of those villagers in that clearing.

As we staggered back a-ways to gather ourselves, wild looks in all of our eyes, I told the group my thoughts.

That is Jenarta. She is Norebo.

My companions stared at me blankly, and so I told them of the Norebo, the malign spirit that haunts the realms of darkness and shadow, but that sometimes makes its way to our lands to inhabit a body and feed on violence.

This spirit cannot possess a body unwilling. It must therefore be invited in by its host, and so it finds those who are mad or in despair, and it whispers to these persons promises...promises of vengeance, and of power, and of redemption.

And eventually these insidious whispers break down resistance, and the Norebo is invited in. There it takes over its host, and then it feeds to grow stronger. And the Norebo does not feed on plants or animals, nor even upon the bodies of the seven races.

The Norebo feeds on pain and despair. And the more it feeds, the stronger it becomes.

My companions looked at me in horror, and asked me what we could so, for certainly if the girl was strong enough to slay an entire village she could slay us as well.

But I told them that I remembered an account by a Paladin, who had heard of a similar possession of an old woman in a village.

The Paladin came to slay the woman, but when he saw her he saw it was his mother, who had abandoned him at birth.

The old woman gave the Paladin a look of recognition and mustered up the will to fight and expel the spirit.

We had to find someone or something that would shock Jenarta enough to fight the evil spirit and to expel it. A moment's thought gave up the answer.

We must find Hadulo.

It was a long search, over several days, for Hadulo was a crafty woodsman, but find him we did, and we trapped him in his cave and overpowered him and bound him in ropes and jungle vines.

So trussed, we dragged Hadulo towards the clearing, but as we did I worried, for I feared that the stench of death about the clearing would be enough to give the Norebo the power to resist our plan.

And so I bid my companions to ward Hadulo in a nearby area...to stand him up and to themselves hide nearby but out of sight.

With that, I strode toward the Norebo's den.

My feet trembled and my heart quavered at the thought of actually entering that clearing, where humans had been used as no being should be, but I knew this was the only chance we had to leave this island, and I also felt a pity for the girl that was once in possession of the body now wracked with evil.

And so I approached and finally, after a final deep breath, entered the clearing.

At once the girl's head turned towards me, and she smiled a most foul smile as gibbets of flesh dropped from her mouth.

With the strength of a cougar she leapt towards me, covering almost twenty feet in that single bound. Just barely did I flee the sweep of her be-taloned hand as it smote the bark from a nearby tree.

And then I ran...as fast and as desperately as I had ever run before or since.

Through thorny growths, through mud and pools of water, ripping through vines and overhangs, for I felt the hot breath of malice upon my heels.

I did not dare look back, not until my breath had almost given out and I began to worry that I had lost my way back to the place were Hadulo was.

Then I turned back and saw my doom upon me, and so looking, I tripped over a fallen limb and plunged headlong into the bushes ahead of me.

I heard the girl enter behind me and prepared for my own horrific end, but when the blow did not come I looked up and saw her standing behind me, transfixed on a point ahead of me.

Following her malefic gaze I saw Hadulo, standing helpless and bound, his eyes now as wide as saucers, having finally divined what fate we had in store for him.

But within the body that was once Jenarta a conflict raged.

Muscles all over her body rippled back and forth in unnatural ways as if they were warring armies clashing on a field of battle.

Twice she screamed, a scream of such rank despair that even today it brings me shudders and goosebumps.

Then, with a final, racking spasm, we saw a shadow leave her body and fly off into the jungle.

As I started to rise and my companions began to emerge from hiding, I saw that the girl, still bloodied and haggard, was no longer the instrument of evil I had witnessed a minute before.

Instead, I saw a look of determination in her eyes...and yes, hatred as well.

Quickly, she strode forward, grabbed my carving knife from my sheath, and cut Hadulo's throat from ear to ear. So sated, she sank to her knees and let the knife fall from her grasp.

I stood then, and made move to comfort her, but it was only then that I saw the truth of her predicament.

For although the Norebo had been in complete control of her mind and body during her possession, it had, in the complete malice of its delight, allowed her to see, hear, taste, and remember every action her body had committed.

And now, as the realization of this crossed her face, she let out a scream and began to claw at her face with her sharp nails.

My companions made move to grab her arms and overpower her, but I waved them away as I stooped quickly to the ground and arose again.

Then I stared straight into Jenarta's eyes and, although knowing she did not speak my tongue, said to her "come my child, and embrace me, for I truly understand your pain and I can cure it".

And suddenly, Jenarta stopped, and with blood streaming from her nail-rent face she stood, and with a single tear in her eye stepped forward and embraced me.

Some of my companions, on the journey home after we repaired the ship would not speak to me thereafter, and in their whispers called me murderer.

But I know as Faenella is my witness, that as Jenarta slumped off of the bloody carving knife in my hand and we broke our embrace, that she had a smile on her face and a look of blessed relief in her eyes.

And although I have often asked Faenella to forgive me if I did wrong that day, I can swear to you that on the anniversary of her death I always dream of her.

And in my dreams I see her with the gods, and she is whole, and her betrothed is with her, and children scurry at her feet. And I know that she has found at last surcease.

But let this tale be a warning to you all...give not in to despair, no matter what travails may come your way, for despair is the mother of evil and the mother of violence.

Script of the Tale [any bard may use this script as long as Therrilliar is credited]

#Tale-Child of Despair

Put recite The tale I tell you this night is one I have not told for many years, for it is one that is painful in its speaking and horrible in its hearing. But it is a tale of treachery and despair, and it should be told...as a warning.

Pause 10

Put recite It was perhaps fifty years ago, when I set sail from my island home of Onlor as passenger on the Gallon's Widow, heading west towards Elanthia.

Pause 8

Put recite It was winter, and the passage was risky, for large sea creatures oft winter in the warm currents of those waters, but our captain was in a hurry and sought to avoid any naval patrols, as was often the wont of a smuggler such as he.

Pause 12

Put recite The voyage was peaceful enough at first...dull in fact, but on the seventeenth day of our sojourn, the waters boiled as huge tentacles erupted from the seas and lashed the decks, splintering wood and crushing men in their deadly grasp.

Pause 12

Put recite We fought hard, and eventually the bite of our blades and the song of our arrows told, for the beast submerged to lick its wounds, though we were aggrieved at the loss of two of our number.

Pause 10

Put recite But the ship was in bad shape, crushed by three of those thick tentacles, and we needed to put in to some place for repair.

Pause 10

Put recite Fortunately, the captain knew of an island nearby inhabited by a tribe of natives who were friendly and with whom the captain had traded from time to time. So we limped and bailed and prayed to Eluned and finally came in sight of the smallish isle.

Pause 14

Put recite It was approaching dusk when we maneuvered the ship into the bay and brought her as close as the coral reefs would allow. Then a half dozen of us took to the long boat and rowed to shore.

Pause 12

Put recite We had expected to be met by curious villagers, for surely ships such as ours were not commonplace in these waters and the captain had assured us that he was treated to a feast by the tribesmen on his last visit.

Pause 14

Put recite But as we rowed nearer to the village of bamboo huts and mud wattles, we saw not a single villager stir, nor a single flickering light or flame. The only sound was the lapping of waves, the slight tell of our oars, and the night call of the beasts of the evening.

Pause 14

Put recite Clearly something was amiss, and as we beached our long boat upon the muddy shore, we drew blade and nocked arrow and a few struck up torches to guide us. So accoutered, we strode through the village.

Pause 14

Put recite What we strode through was a charnel house.

Pause 4

Put recite Huts were open to the night air as if ripped apart by great claws, splinters scattered upon the ground. Thatched roofs were pulled apart, and hide curtains were slashed with jagged cuts.

Pause 10

Put recite But worse still were the bodies.

Pause 4

Put recite Dozens of them in dozens of huts, mauled and mangled in ways that defy description, but all, every single body that still possessed enough of a face to judge its features, frozen in a horrible rictus of agony that bespoke of terror preceding death.

Pause 13

Put recite And the blood!

Pause 4

Put recite More than one would imagine from a thousand bodies, splashed everywhere, in great dried pools upon the ground, in streaks and handprints upon the hut walls, and in great violent spatters upon even the highest ceilings.

Pause 13

Put recite A mad, scarlet painting upon a canvas of terror.

Pause 4

Put recite We strode grimly through this madness, gorge rising in our throats, hoping to find the reason for such monstrousity.

Pause 9

Put recite A few of the sailors bent double and heaved their night's meal, but I was too numb from the sheer brutality displayed here to feel any emotion but fear.

Pause 11

Put recite It was only after several hours of searching that we found the three survivors. They were hidden in a small mound of mud, with a few breathing holes and a small store of food and water.

Pause 11

Put recite It took over an hour of gentle tones and persuasion for them to emerge from their hidey-hole, and in the end I had to play Hodierna's Lilt to calm them sufficiently.

Pause 11

Put recite The tale they told was an abomination.

Pause 4

Put recite There was a young couple of the tribe who were deeply in love, had been in love since childhood. These were Jenarta and Hadulo, and Hadulo had long hoped to marry Jenarta and to father her children.

Pause 12

Put recite Finally, one day, Hadulo came to the father of Jenarta and asked for his permission to marry his daughter.

Pause 7

Put recite Alas! For just that very day the warriors of the tribe had accused Hadulo's father of cowardice when a fight had erupted against a neighboring tribe over fishing rights.

Pause 9

Put recite Never would Jenarta be allowed to marry the son of a coward! A coward whose actions had cost the lives of two of the best warriors of the tribe.

Pause 9

Put recite Hadulo was heart-broken, and repeatedly begged Jenarta to defy her father and run away with him. But Jenarta always refused, not wanting to betray her father or her tribe.

Pause 11

Put recite And so it came to pass that Jenarta was betrothed to another and learned to love her betrothed, and as the day of the wedding approached, Hadulo's heart became dark as coal, and his anger seethed.

Pause 11

Put recite The night before the wedding, as Jenarta and her betrothed snuck away down the beach for a private moment together, Hadulo crept up behind them.

Pause 9

Put recite He plunged his coral dagger into the betrothed's spine, who fell to the ground dead. Then, with ravening in his eyes, he turned upon Jenarta.

Pause 9

Put recite With the strength brought of boiling anger, Hadulo shouted, loud enough so that the villagers nearby could hear "If you will not bear the children of Hadulo, fair treacherous Jenarta, then you shall bear no children forever!"

Pause 13

Put recite And with this he wielded his knife in a way which no knife was meant to be wielded, and he shut Jenarta off from the ranks of motherhood forever.

Pause 11

Put recite As the villagers approached the scene, Hadulo ran into the thick jungles north of the village. Jenarta, kneeling with her own blood at her feet, screamed in despair at the sight of her betrothed and, madness upon her, fled also into the jungle, a trail of blood following in her wake.

Pause 14

Put recite The villagers searched for days for both Hadulo and Jenarta, but found no trace of either.

Pause 7

Put recite A week later villagers went missing.

Pause 4

Put recite At first it was a hunter or two, and although uncommon, hunters had gone missing before, killed by mishap or raiding tribes.

Pause 8

Put recite But then villagers went missing from their huts in the middle of the night. The village shaman consorted with his ancestors and determined that a great curse was laid upon the tribe.

Pause 11

Put recite He went missing the next night.

Pause 4

Put recite As days passed, more villagers were taken in the night, and now the abductions were less subtle and more overt. Huts were slashed through and blood was evident.

Pause 9

Put recite Finally, villagers stopped being abducted, and were simply slain gruesomely within their own huts.

Pause 7

Put recite The remaining villagers banded together in the chieftain's house for mutual protection, all except the three we found hiding in the mud.

Pause 9

Put recite That was three nights before we had arrived, and those in the mud heard the sound of screams and of wet, gurgling death coming from the chieftain's hut two nights ago. Then all was silent until we arrived.

Pause 13

Put recite We knew then that we could not make repairs under these conditions, for we feared we would be beset as we laboured to repair our ship, and so, grimly, we determined to enter the jungle and search for the slayer of the villagers.

Pause 13

Put recite Long did we travel in that steamy clime, for most of the night and the rest of the day, hacking through thick growths and swatting at the buzzing insects that harangued our every move.

Pause 11

Put recite But as dusk again approached, we came quietly to a clearing. And within the clearing we saw her.

Pause 6

Put recite She was abomination.

Pause 4

Put recite She was a young tribeswoman, in ripped, dirty, blood stained clothes, and the inside of her legs still trickled with fresh blood.

Pause 9

Put recite Her face was contorted into a grimace that defied normal musculature, and her eyes...her eyes were unfathomable malice.

Pause 9

Put recite And the clearing she inhabited...was hell brought to earth.

Pause 6

Put recite I shall not even deign to describe what I saw in that clearing, except to say that even the vilest Gorbesh did not deserve the fate of those villagers in that clearing.

Pause 11

Put recite As we staggered back a-ways to gather ourselves, wild looks in all of our eyes, I told the group my thoughts.

Pause 9

Put recite That is Jenarta. She is Norebo.

Pause 4

Put recite My companions stared at me blankly, and so I told them of the Norebo, the malign spirit that haunts the realms of darkness and shadow, but that sometimes makes its way to our lands to inhabit a body and feed on violence.

Pause 13

Put recite This spirit cannot possess a body unwilling. It must therefore be invited in by its host, and so it finds those who are mad or in despair, and it whispers to these persons promises...promises of vengeance, and of power, and of redemption.

Pause 13

Put recite And eventually these insidious whispers break down resistance, and the Norebo is invited in. There it takes over its host, and then it feeds to grow stronger. And the Norebo does not feed on plants or animals, nor even upon the bodies of the seven races.

Pause 13

Put recite The Norebo feeds on pain and despair. And the more it feeds, the stronger it becomes.

Pause 7

Put recite My companions looked at me in horror, and asked me what we could so, for certainly if the girl was strong enough to slay an entire village she could slay us as well.

Pause 11

Put recite But I told them that I remembered an account by a Paladin, who had heard of a similar possession of an old woman in a village.

Pause 8

Put recite The Paladin came to slay the woman, but when he saw her he saw it was his mother, who had abandoned him at birth.

Pause 8

Put recite The old woman gave the Paladin a look of recognition and mustered up the will to fight and expel the spirit.

Pause 9

Put recite We had to find someone or something that would shock Jenarta enough to fight the evil spirit and to expel it. A moment's thought gave up the answer.

Pause 11

Put recite We must find Hadulo.

Pause 4

Put recite It was a long search, over several days, for Hadulo was a crafty woodsman, but find him we did, and we trapped him in his cave and overpowered him and bound him in ropes and jungle vines.

Pause 11

Put recite So trussed, we dragged Hadulo towards the clearing, but as we did I worried, for I feared that the stench of death about the clearing would be enough to give the Norebo the power to resist our plan.

Pause 13

Put recite And so I bid my companions to ward Hadulo in a nearby area...to stand him up and to themselves hide nearby but out of sight.

Pause 9

Put recite With that, I strode toward the Norebo's den.

Pause 4

Put recite My feet trembled and my heart quavered at the thought of actually entering that clearing, where humans had been used as no being should be, but I knew this was the only chance we had to leave this island, and I also felt a pity for the girl that was once in possession of the body now wracked with evil.

Pause 15

Put recite And so I approached and finally, after a final deep breath, entered the clearing.

Pause 8

Put recite At once the girl's head turned towards me, and she smiled a most foul smile as gibbets of flesh dropped from her mouth.

Pause 9

Put recite With the strength of a cougar she leapt towards me, covering almost twenty feet in that single bound. Just barely did I flee the sweep of her be-taloned hand as it smote the bark from a nearby tree.

Pause 11

Put recite And then I ran...as fast and as desperately as I had ever run before or since.

Pause 5

Put recite Through thorny growths, through mud and pools of water, ripping through vines and overhangs, for I felt the hot breath of malice upon my heels.

Pause 10

Put recite I did not dare look back, not until my breath had almost given out and I began to worry that I had lost my way back to the place were Hadulo was.

Pause 10

Put recite Then I turned back and saw my doom upon me, and so looking, I tripped over a fallen limb and plunged headlong into the bushes ahead of me.

Pause 9

Put recite I heard the girl enter behind me and prepared for my own horrific end, but when the blow did not come I looked up and saw her standing behind me, transfixed on a point ahead of me.

Pause 11

Put recite Following her malefic gaze I saw Hadulo, standing helpless and bound, his eyes now as wide as saucers, having finally divined what fate we had in store for him.

Pause 11

Put recite But within the body that was once Jenarta a conflict raged.

Pause 5

Put recite Muscles all over her body rippled back and forth in unnatural ways as if they were warring armies clashing on a field of battle.

Pause 11

Put recite Twice she screamed, a scream of such rank despair that even today it brings me shudders and goosebumps.

Pause 8

Put recite Then, with a final, racking spasm, we saw a shadow leave her body and fly off into the jungle.

Pause 8

Put recite As I started to rise and my companions began to emerge from hiding, I saw that the girl, still bloodied and haggard, was no longer the instrument of evil I had witnessed a minute before.

Pause 11

Put recite Instead, I saw a look of determination in her eyes...and yes, hatred as well.

Pause 7

Put recite Quickly, she strode forward, grabbed my carving knife from my sheath, and cut Hadulo's throat from ear to ear. So sated, she sank to her knees and let the knife fall from her grasp.

Pause 11

Put recite I stood then, and made move to comfort her, but it was only then that I saw the truth of her predicament.

Pause 9

Put recite For although the Norebo had been in complete control of her mind and body during her possession, it had, in the complete malice of its delight, allowed her to see, hear, taste, and remember every action her body had committed.

Pause 14

Put recite And now, as the realization of this crossed her face, she let out a scream and began to claw at her face with her sharp nails.

Pause 10

Put recite My companions made move to grab her arms and overpower her, but I waved them away as I stooped quickly to the ground and arose again.

Pause 11

Put recite Then I stared straight into Jenarta's eyes and, although knowing she did not speak my tongue, said to her "come my child, and embrace me, for I truly understand your pain and I can cure it".

Pause 13

Put recite And suddenly, Jenarta stopped, and with blood streaming from her nail-rent face she stood, and with a single tear in her eye stepped forward and embraced me.

Pause 13

Put recite Some of my companions, on the journey home after we repaired the ship would not speak to me thereafter, and in their whispers called me murderer.

Pause 9

Put recite But I know as Faenella is my witness, that as Jenarta slumped off of the bloody carving knife in my hand and we broke our embrace, that she had a smile on her face and a look of blessed relief in her eyes.

Pause 13

Put recite And although I have often asked Faenella to forgive me if I did wrong that day, I can swear to you that on the anniversary of her death I always dream of her.

Pause 11

Put recite And in my dreams I see her with the gods, and she is whole, and her betrothed is with her, and children scurry at her feet. And I know that she has found at last surcease.

Pause 12

Put recite But let this tale be a warning to you all...give not in to despair, no matter what travails may come your way, for despair is the mother of evil and the mother of violence.

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